Many Happy Returns

Drunk sometime in late December 2009

Paisley Martini
Palm Beach Martini
Pompano Martini

I have taken quite a long hiatus for the holidays. I can’t even remember the exact dates that the martinis referenced above were consumed, do forgive my hazy blog. Aside from having many family commitments, children running around and general holiday festivities, I found that my body needed the rest from hard alcohol. I kept getting this horrible burning sensation in the back of my throat, which after the cessation of vodka and gin and God-knows-what-else for three weeks, is feeling quite normal again.

I did create a lovely pomegranate cosmopolitan for Christmas Day, though, which I would like to share with you. This one was enough for 7-8 servings: 2 ounces lime juice, 10 ounces vodka, 2 ounces triple sec and 6 ounces of pomegranate juice. It is relatively mild and not terribly sweet, so you can knock back quite a few of these before you realize what you’ve done. At any rate, my extended family and I enjoyed them quite a bit.

The Paisley Martini was 6 parts gin, 1/2 teaspoon dry vermouth, 1/2 teaspoon scotch and a cocktail olive. I took this one because my husband quite likes scotch, I am not a fan myself as I prefer rye whiskey. I do like the unique and seemingly unpronounceable names of some of the scotch brands, though, and they usually have very pretty labels. I pick scotch similar to how I pick my football teams, I guess. Thank heavens for the airline size bottles of alcohol, I could get a variety of scotch with which to experiment. At any rate, the amounts of the dry vermouth and the scotch were minimal, so merely just flavored, and not overpowered the drink. It was okay and did not taste like medicine (which is always a plus), but I would not have it again since even the small amount of scotch was too much for me. As to the name of the drink, are paisley patterns popular in Scotland, in addition to tartans?

The next two shared common ingredients: gin and grapefruit juice. The Palm Beach Martini was pretty simple: 6 parts gin, 1 teaspoon sweet vermouth and 4 parts grapefruit juice. Too much vermouth, of course, but other than that it was relatively fresh tasting, similar to what Palm Beach would evoke, I guess, hence the name.

Pompano is also a location in Florida and sounds very similar to grapefruit in both Spanish (“pomelo”) and Italian (“pompelmo”). I guess a pompano is also a marine fish. Huh, go figure. I am very grateful this drink did not call for a slice of fish as a garnish—some of the others did like the oyster one and the shrimptini. I am not much of a seafood fan, so this was a very good thing. This martini was made with 5 parts gin, 1 part vermouth, 2 parts grapefruit juice and a dash of orange bitters. OK, first off, the 1 part vermouth was way, way too much, so we cut that back right away and just added half a part of dry vermouth. The orange bitters added another layer of citrus. I think between the two, I preferred the Palm Beach, it was simpler and I preferred the sweet vermouth taste (once we had adjusted it downward).